Recruit
by Thethuthinnang
Summary: BtVS.The Bourne Supremacy. She's thinking about taking up Russian.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Bourne Supremacy belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and Paul Greengrass/Universal Studios.

The second Buffy saw him, she knew he didn't want to be there.

He was so obviously a hit man. How did this guy make it through airports? Everything about him, from his sharp, economically cut hair on down, screamed contract killer. Five-year-olds could have picked him out of a crowd. "Mommy, that man gets paid to off people."

Except then he nodded, gripped her eyes with his, and, in a low, gravel tone like the slow burn of vodka, said, _"Zd'ravstvuyte,"_ and it was like, _Oh._

"How was your flight?" was on the tip of her tongue, but then he glanced down, an expression on his face as if he would have been fidgeting if his body knew how to fidget, and she realized that he was actually more uncomfortable than she was. All the small talk she had prepared evaporated.

Buffy recognized his type. Ex-government, so fresh he was still bleeding, and wanting nothing more than to forget whatever it was that had driven him into so desperate a corner as to try for an instructing job in the private sector. Add that he was ex-Russian government looking in the American-British private sector, and all signs pointed to what the Army liked to call a "clusterfuck." Buffy briefly wondered if hiring him meant that they were going to be constantly looking over their shoulders for _Rossiyane_.

Giles had seen this guy's file, and his suggestion had been to offer him the job. "An assassin, yes," Giles had said, frowning as he cleaned his glasses, "but with the sort of position we are trying to fill, I'm afraid our options don't extend too far beyond assassins and murderers."

Buffy didn't quite agree, but if they turned away murderers, well, that was like half of their senior ranks right there.

Theirs was a Council that believed in second chances.

He was looking at the door now, and she could almost hear him thinking that this had been a bad idea and he was sorry he'd ever come. Buffy decided to lay down her cards.

"The salary blows," she said, lounging back in her chair. "You heard about the London bombing two years ago? Yeah, that pretty much knocked out about ninety percent of our operation, personnel and all. We're rebuilding, or at least in the process of, so it's less oodles and oodles of money and more ramen for dinner five nights a week. On the plus side, we've got benefits, unbelievable dental, great travel packages, and our mortality rate's dropped fifteen percent since June! You tell me that's not meeting company goals."

Now he was eyeing her like she was crazy, but Buffy was used to that. At least he wasn't looking as if he was about to step onto the beach at Normandy anymore. She tried a cautious, unexpectedly shy smile, trying to both reassure him _Hey, I'm not a lunatic and this is an awesome job that you're going to love_ and also not give away _My God, are people actually allowed to be as hot as you?_

"I have never been a teacher," he said, and the growling quality of his voice, the way he leaned forward, looking at no one and nothing but her and yet remaining tense and completely aware of everything within a mile radius, made her knees go weak and a faint pink to flush her cheeks. She desperately hoped he wasn't noticing.

"It's not that hard," she said honestly. "Most of the girls involved in our program are fast learners, and the academics will be handled by another branch entirely. To tell you the truth, it's mostly going to be a lot of show and tell."

He frowned, and she wondered if there was an equivalent term in Russian. Just as she was opening her mouth to elaborate, he said, "You know why I am here."

That was blunt. Buffy raised an eyebrow.

"I know you screwed up your last job," she said, "enough so that unless you find someone else willing to protect you from your previous employers, you're liable to turn up face-down in a river somewhere, or maybe as part of the cement casing of the next building to go up in Moscow."

He didn't deny it. "This…Council. They can do this?"

"Believe it," said Buffy. She leaned forward, matching his posture. "Work for us. It's good work, stuff you can be proud of yourself for doing, and no one, not from Russia or anywhere, will be able to touch you."

They were face-to-face now, their heads together like they were whispering, their coffees going cold and ignored. She could see the color of his eyes, the faint scars where his flesh had been lacerated and then not doctored as well as they could have been. She could smell the cologne he wasn't wearing, the hint of winter and snow he had brought into the café with him.

His eyes lowered. He was looking at her exposed knee, the bit of bare flesh between skirt and hem and boot top, and the heat that suddenly, without warning came to life between them was like a fever.

"I think, yes," he said slowly, meeting her eyes again, and his were dark and inscrutable, nearly black. "You are my," he groped for the correct English, "handler?"

Horrified at the thought, Buffy shook her head.

"Contact?"

Buffy smiled. "Not quite," she said, "but I think we're going to be working together a lot."

Then, shockingly, like seeing a crack form in the sheer face of a granite cliff, a corner of his mouth turned up in a half-smile.

_"Da," _he said. "You have me."

They stood, then, and he left enough money on the table to cover both coffees and a generous tip. The café was crowded, and he seemed not to give it a second thought before he placed a hand at the small of her back, not really touching her, fingertips just brushing her coat, taking the front and pushing through the press with his own mass and weight. At the door, he held it for her, and even took her hand as she went down the step.

Buffy realized that she probably shouldn't be letting herself be charmed and seduced by a former Russian hit man. She also realized that that was exactly what she was letting happen.

At the street, he hailed her a cab, then opened the door for her. "London?"

"Next flight out," she said. "Think you can make it?"

That smile again, that corner of his mouth that made her want to pull him into the cab with her. _"Da."_

Then, when he had closed the door and was leaning into the half-open window, he said to her, voice so low and quiet that she almost missed it, "Kirill."

"Buffy," she said, and gave him her hand when he held his out again.

His fingers were wiry and callused. "In London, you teach me more about 'show and tell,' _da_?"

Buffy's jaw dropped. He slipped his hand from hers, the cab was pulling away, and she told herself she wouldn't look back but then couldn't help it, and he was a tall, dark shape against the concrete and the snow, already walking away, but then the cab went under a bridge and she was looking into her own reflection.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Bourne Supremacy belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and Paul Greengrass/Universal Studios.

Buffy managed to hang on to her nervous breakdown until she was standing in line at the airport, waiting to board her plane. However, once all the paperwork had been done and all that was left was to wait for her flight to be called, her knees turned to water, her mouth went dry, and she had to find a chair to collapse in.

What was she _doing_? Had she _completely_ lost her mind? Not dating or getting laid for two years was no excuse for falling back on _assassins_. Even really, really hot assassins, assassins whose dark-eyed looks and chiseled features should be classified as WMDs. And she just _knew_ that Kirill was the kind of guy who had a girlfriend in every port, long-haired, pouting, glamorous nymphs with perfect hair and perfect skin who were just lining up for the chance to lick all kinds of things off of various parts of his body—

_No_. Bad Buffy. _Bad_.

An older couple walking by was looking at her concernedly. Buffy wondered if her face was as red as it felt.

Buffy had never reacted to anyone quite like this, not even Angel. No, Angel had been all about the angst, the star-crossed true lovers parted by tragic circumstance, more chaste kisses through her bedroom window than—well, anything else that could happen in a bedroom. Even the one night they had finally made love—and, boy, that actually _was_ still hard to think about without tearing up—it had been more about the feelings and the romance and the sheer fairy tale. No, Angel had never been this...this..._carnal_.

Spike, on the other hand, had been all about carnal, but she had to admit that it had been very one-sided. She didn't like to think too much or too long on all the things she'd done with Spike, mostly because of the whole using him to make herself feel less like a corpse and more like a human being thing, but from what she did grudgingly remember, sex with Spike had been more about feeling_ anything_ rather than feeling _hot_. Buffy understood that between them, sex had been far more about pleasure for Spike than it had been for her, which was both incredibly flattering and incredibly sad. Not that Spike hadn't been a walking talking sex god—_I mean, really, are you kidding?_—but for Buffy, his inherent and undeniable sexiness had played an undeservedly small role in what had gone on between them, and had just never been too big a part of the equation.

Then, of course, there was Riley. And Riley was so, so good-looking, like every young girl's idea of the all-American hero, but—and here was the rub—just not _hot_. Dark. Sultry. With eyes like they were giving a come-hither look to the cab they were trying to hail. Riley had been about comfort and warmth and picnics and movies and ice cream—which made it so obvious why it hadn't worked. Buffy had found him good-looking and a turn-on, especially in the sheer, massive size of him, and it had shown in how sex-crazed they'd been at least in the beginning—but that hadn't been her first reaction.

Angel had made her want to die. Spike had made her want to cry. Riley had made her want to tear out her hair in frustration.

Kirill made her want to drag him into a dark corner, tear off his clothes, and sink her teeth into him.

Buffy realized she was huddled into her chair, clutching her carry-on bag like it was a teddy bear, and the little girl sitting in the next chair was staring at her. She straightened up again, brushing off her coat, and tried not to look like an anxious wreck.

Dawn was going to see straight through her. In fact, who _wasn't_ going to see straight through her, except maybe Andrew? Oh, God, just thinking about what Faith was going to say was—

Buffy gasped, actually gasped, and the girl sitting beside her sort of inched away.

Faith. _How_ could she not think about Faith?

When Faith got a hold of Kirill...

Buffy was simultaneously seized by a kind of abject relief and a shocking, violent jealousy, and then her heart sort of fell into her stomach, which left her depressed and queasy. _Faith_. Dark, sultry, the come-hither eyes—why did Buffy even bother? Kirill was going to take one look at Faith and drop her like a hot potato. And wasn't that going to be so great for her psyche, watching those two dark-haired, dark-eyed, excessively hot people go tearing into each other, because she just _knew_ Faith was Kirill's type and Kirill was Faith's—

The airport was quite crowded at that time of day. Buffy had situated herself just in front of the doors, hoping the blisteringly cold blasts of air accompanying incoming traffic would help her feel better or at least lower the chances of her pouncing Kirill the second he showed up, _if_ he showed up. Thronged with people, the chairs taken up on every side, Buffy had been, even in the depths of her self-pitying contemplations, keeping a tight watch on anything that entered her immediate threat zone of twenty feet. The cool air was awash with the smells of luggage, stale coffee, plastic, and people.

Despite the crowds, the huge (yet fashionable) coat she was wearing, and her own nearly flawless instincts, Buffy didn't actually notice anyone approaching until someone sat in the chair beside her, the first thing to enter into her field of vision being long, lean legs and a battered black duffel. Buffy actually started blushing even as she turned her head to confirm.

Kirill wasn't looking at her. He was rather casually glancing around, languidly observing the general area and (Buffy noticed; _now_ she was observant) marking the position of each and every security guard and camera. He didn't seem to be too tense, but then he probably knew this major Moscow airport like the back of his hand.

He was dressed the same as he'd been earlier. His posture was painfully straight; it would have reduced Giles, who regularly deplored the unattractive slouches of today's young people, to tears. Other than that (and maybe good posture wasn't so irregular here, Buffy was seeing a lot of straight-backed Russians), everything about him was lazily casual, as if he hadn't a care in the world.

God. His hair was so _black_. She wanted to drag her fingers through it, mess it up, see what he did. And that stubble, not too much or too little, just enough to make him look cleanly rugged, and those lips, full without being large, his gently sloped chin, then the lines of his jaw and throat, the swell of his larynx, the gentle hollow between his collarbones just above the collar of his shirt—the flat of his chest, her hand aching to lay flat against it—

Kirill's eyelashes flicked, and then he was glancing at her from the corners of his eyes.

Buffy felt that she should look away, maybe even _run_ away, and some part of her was hugely embarrassed that he'd just caught her staring at him like a moron, but the much larger part of her was caught, unable to move. Her lips were slightly parted, she knew she was blushing, she probably looked like a total _idiot_ just gaping at him—

He turned his head, and then they were face-to-face. He was looking at her, and there was something like surprise coming to life in his expression, as if he was seeing something he hadn't _really_ been expecting, but then all of it was rolled under a wave of heat that seemed to darken everything already dark about him so that Buffy suddenly couldn't even breathe at the look on his face—

Someone coughed explosively. Buffy and Kirill turned at the same time.

An elderly couple, man and woman both white-haired, sat across from them, and they were trying hard not to smile. A younger couple, sitting right next to them, weren't even bothering to try and hide their knowing grins. The girl next to Buffy was giggling almost hysterically, and her mother was giggling with her. On the elderly couple's other side, a few young men were grinning and muttering what sounded like _"Pazdravlyayu!"_ to Kirill, and the middle-aged woman sitting next to Kirill was smiling and telling him something in Russian that was making his lips move as if he wanted to smile.

The capillaries in Buffy's face were going to burst any second. She felt as if she'd been caught doing unspeakably dirty things to Kirill instead of just gawking at him.

She stood up, almost jumping to her feet, bag still clutched in her arms, face burning. Everyone, Kirill included stared at her.

"I," she stammered, "I, um...I have to...go—over _there_."

Without looking at Kirill again, she picked a direction and took off, not even caring if it was in the opposite direction of her terminal.

As she turned, she saw, out of the corners of her own eyes, Kirill lower his head, eyes closed, mouth open in a grin, laughing noiselessly, his shoulders shaking.

Buffy's heart constricted.

_Oh, well, _she thought despairingly, _I took Faith down once. Guess I can do it again._


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Bourne Supremacy belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and Paul Greengrass/Universal Studios.

Author's Warning: butchery of the Russian language ahead.

Coach was small and cramped, like coach always was. Kirill followed Buffy to her seat. When she turned and glared at him for making her cowardly escape so difficult, he showed her his ticket, which said very clearly in printed English and Russian that he had the seat next to hers.

Stupid ex-black-ops.

Sticking her carry-on into the overhead compartment, Buffy stuffed herself into the window seat, giving him a look like she dared him to protest. He raised an eyebrow and took the middle seat without comment, leaving the aisle side empty.

From then until takeoff, there was a silence. Buffy couldn't think of anything to say, except maybe _I'm sorry I keep ogling you. I know you're not a piece of meat to be stared at like that. I respect you as a person._ Except he probably got stared at all the time, and he hadn't exactly looked like he'd been offended by it. In fact, he'd looked...well..._interested_.

Buffy was sure she hadn't imagined the mutuality of the tension between them; she just wasn't certain how to _interpret_ it. Was she a potential one night stand, all with the lust and not with the more? Or was she...well, _more_? Did assassins even _do_ more?

Kirill was a blank to her. Having never delved too deeply into the motives and inner workings of contract killers, Buffy just didn't have any context in which to fit his behavior and thereby be able to guess at what he was thinking. Also, this guy had, like, _no_ tells. She supposed it was a part of his training, but he didn't fidget, didn't chafe, fret, twitch, wiggle, or _anything_. He just sat there, the poker face of poker faces, leaving her to stew in her own sexual nervous strain.

Takeoff was slightly nerve-wracking, as Buffy wasn't sure how much she trusted Russian aeronautics. How she missed British Airways! She was never leaving England again.

Once the seatbelt light had gone off, the stewardess, a blonde, blue-eyed, snow-complected Viking with legs that went up to her neck, came around with peanuts, vodka, and blankets. Buffy took a blanket, Kirill a vodka. As she continued on her way, the stewardess paused to give Kirill a look that wolves must give other wolves in mating season. He seemed not to notice, but Buffy frothed with jealousy anyway.

For nearly an hour, they just sat, Buffy stiff with nerves and Kirill...well, asleep, from what she could see.

His profile was just so..._gripping_. Buffy thought she could stare at it the whole trip. His eyelashes were shockingly long, and to see them was to wonder what it might feel like to have them brush her cheeks as he kissed her, as he lowered his head over her, as his body pressed down from above. She imagined seeing them up close, dark against the skin of his face, his jaw scraping her chin and neck—

Buffy turned to the window, flushed. God, was she _that_ direly in need? Note to self: find the Christmas present from Dawnie and buy batteries.

The blanket was fluffy and warm, probably lost on its way to first-class, and Buffy snuggled into it, pulling it up to her neck. Her coat was in the overhead, and the cabin was actually kind of chilly. And maybe placing some kind of barrier between her and Kirill would help her keep her hands to herself.

The lights dimmed not soon after, a movie under way, some Russian affair with English subtitles. Buffy tried to pay attention to it for no other reason than that she was trying not to look at Kirill more than necessary. Why, _why_ had she thought taking him back to London on her flight was a good idea? There was no way she was going to survive.

The cabin was dark and quiet, half-lit by the movie into black, white, and gray shadows. There weren't that many people on that particular flight, with most of the other passengers on the other side of the plane. The stewardesses had retreated and Kirill's vodka was half-gone.

The window was a sheen of thick, black glass. Buffy squinted through it, hoping for a star.

Beneath the blanket, a hand touched her leg.

She knew it was Kirill's. No one else would have a hand—or a touch—like that.

It wasn't tentative; it was just slow, as if, with each hesitation, he was asking her permission. First the fingertips, one by one, brushing the skirt against the leg, and then the palm, laid gently against her thigh, the material of the skirt flattened between. From there he stroked not up at all, which could possibly have been disastrous, but _down, _toward the knee.

Buffy released the breath she'd been holding, and it came out shaky and loose, as if she were trembling. She raised her eyes, glanced at him, but he wasn't looking at her. Kirill watched the screen, utterly relaxed, giving no hint of what he was doing, like he was actually watching the movie, and it was so effective that Buffy thought for a moment that she was hallucinating.

But then his hand came to her knee, to that gap between skirt and boot where it was her bare flesh. He stopped there, fingers tracing the shape of her knee, almost a caress.

It was just his hand, just her knee, but the breath was sucked from her lungs as if it was the most intimate way anyone had ever touched her. Buffy stayed absolutely still, almost afraid he would take his hand away if she moved too precipitously.

His fingers brushed her skin, traced and traced again below and above, even stretching down the slightest bit to rest the tips lightly against her shin. There he paused, hand tightening almost imperceptibly, and Buffy looked at him again to see that he had slightly lowered his head, eyes half-lidded, and she was put in mind of a man touching a holy object, of worshiping the sacred with his hands.

Kirill turned then, and looked at her, and she was leaning forward, putting a tentative hand on his arm. He put his other hand on her face, cupping her cheek, his thumb brushing her lips, and he was coming closer, he was leaning forward to—

"What was it?" whispered Buffy.

Kirill paused. A line formed in his brow.

"What was it?" she insisted. She had to know. "Why are you quitting?"

The hands dropped, withdrew. He sat abruptly back, turning away, and it was like a door slamming in her face. Buffy blinked, breathless, and thought her heart would stop with panic.

_I have to know, _she thought. _Before I can do this, I have to know._

His eyes were so dark. He was staring at the screen and seeing nothing at all.

"I killed a woman," he said quietly.

Buffy didn't move. She was numb.

Kirill didn't look at her.

She opened her mouth to speak, to say...something, anything—

"Excuse me," she murmured, and stood up. The blanket fell away.

Kirill stood up as well, but only to let her pass like the gentleman he was. He didn't look around, he didn't come after her, he only stood, staring straight ahead, as she walked away.

The restroom was as small and cramped as the rest of coach, but cleaner than expected. Buffy put down the toilet lid and, sitting down, put her face in her hands.

_Stupid,_ she thought. _Stupid, stupid, stupid..._

Assassin. What did she think that word _meant_, anyway?

_I killed a woman._

_Oh, God. I'm so stupid._

She would have to avoid him. She would have to—to tell Giles she couldn't work with him, not in the same location. He could go to Cleveland and she'd stay in London, or the other way around, but she couldn't—she just _couldn't_—

Buffy bent forward until she was hugging her legs, huddling into herself. The bathroom was chilly and the light was glaring white, severe. When she closed her eyes, she was overwhelmed with the smells of cleansers.

The engines were a muted thunder vibrating through the plane. She could hear the howl of the wind outside, the groans and little shrieks of stressed metal. Through the door, she could hear the small sounds of the movie playing on cheap headphones, could hear every cough and shift and snore of the passengers. She could hear their individual breaths.

She heard him breathe: a short, cut-off inhalation, then a painful exhaling.

The memory of his skin and his smell filled her body with a heat like fire.

What was she thinking? What was she doing? _What_ had she thought he was going to say?

He was an assassin. He lived by his murders, or at least he had. Wasn't that the point of all this, that this was a new beginning for him, that all of his past could be left behind?

_I killed a woman._

Angel and Spike were murderers, too.

Except that was different…wasn't it?

There was a difference between soulless beasts and a human being who chose to kill simply for profit…wasn't there?

Buffy could still feel his skin against her hands. She clenched them into fists. The thought of never touching him again, of completely throwing away all the possibilities and what-ifs that were sparked to life every time their eyes met, made her nod, made her think _Yes, that's what I should do._

It made her feel as hollow and empty as a sieve.

She couldn't want him. She couldn't.

From the door, there was a small, soft noise, like a footfall. The door, which she'd locked, clicked and swung open. Buffy looked up.

Kirill stepped into the restroom, shutting the door behind him. He a print of black and white in the harsh white light, against the gleaming metal and chrome, but his expression was nothing less than resolute.

"It was," he said, "an accident."

His accent had thickened. Buffy stared at him.

"I," he said, and grit his teeth, struggling to come up with the right words. The muscles worked in his jaw. "I tried to kill...a man. A man like me, _ubiytsa_—assassin. I thought...he was the driver."

_I'm sitting on a toilet,_ Buffy thought, and stood up, moving slowly. Kirill watched her, and that line was back in his brow, and something, something that could have been anger or hesitation flared in his face.

"I am not a monster," he said quietly, and now she heard it, that small, almost indiscernible thing that crept at the bottom of his thoughts, his voice, his expressions.

She heard anguish.

Kirill's hands found her waist. He lifted her up, was putting her against the wall, held her there as if she weighed nothing. The metal chilled her back and neck, her hair catching at corners. He came closer, his hand sliding from her hip down her thigh, catching her by the angle of her knee and pulling her leg up to clasp his waist. He pressed his body against hers, put his mouth to her mouth and—

Oh..._God._

He tasted...he tasted like...

She put her hands in his hair, gripped it. Her legs were around his waist, he was touching her neck, her face, callused fingers dragging through her hair and down her arm. He was pushing her into the wall, the kiss breaking apart with a gasp—hers—and then he lowered his head to put his mouth to her throat and she felt his jaw scrape the top of her breast through her shirt.

Buffy moaned, and she felt him shudder at the sound as if at a blow, a bone-deep tremble from the very center of his body, and then he caught her under her legs and thrust her farther up, her shoulder blade and elbow jarring against the wall hard enough to bruise and probably leave dents. His hands were under her skirt, his hands were sliding up her legs to grasp her hips again over nothing but the thinnest cotton.

An alarm, small and inaudible and slightly half-hearted, went off in her head.

"Wait, wait—_Kirill_—"

Now he groaned, or maybe growled, and brought one hand back up to pull up her shirt. Buffy made a noise of distress, and then Kirill's teeth sank into the flesh of her breast.

A cry exploded in her throat, but Kirill's hand was suddenly over her mouth and what came out was no more than a low, shuddering whimper.

Buffy was shaking. Kirill lifted his head, and she was almost shocked to see no blood on his lips. He was breathing harshly, pupils huge and dilated, dark eyes darker than she had thought possible.

"I," she said unevenly, whispering, almost gasping, against his fingers, wanting nothing more than to tear his shirt off. "I, um, I have to, uh, I have to wait. Um. It's…it's not…I mean…at least a _date_..."

One black eyebrow arched. Buffy's train of thought immediately derailed.

"I'm not usually this easy," she said faintly.

He blinked. The predatory look on his face softened into something else. His mouth sort of constricted, as if he were trying not to smile.

"Oh, shut up," she said irritably.

The smile was small, slow, and possibly the sexiest thing she'd ever seen. He pulled her head down by a gentle handful of hair, kissed her long and unhurriedly, and Buffy just melted.

He put her on her feet, again by the waist as if she weighed about as much as a handful of feathers. Except then, instead of stepping immediately away, he stayed there and, as if she were a little girl, straightened her shirt and smoothed out her hair. He even adjusted her skirt and rubbed a stray eyelash off of her cheek.

She could have stood there staring at him like a wide-eyed moron for weeks if he hadn't then leaned forward, one hand bracing on the sink and the other tangling in her hair, and, unsmiling, grim dark eyes on hers, told her in his low, gravelly voice, "London, _da_?"

Buffy nodded weakly.

The hold on her hair tightened, and then he practically dragged her up to him, pulling so that she was forced to lean her head back, and this kiss was hard and unforgiving, selfishly consuming, and Buffy was going to either die or—

There was a click.

They both went completely still. Their mouths came apart. Buffy looked at the door the same time Kirill did.

A small, hunched old woman stood there, clutching her shawl. She was scowling.

"Animal," she hissed in thick English, and waved her cane at Kirill. "Put down _dyevochka_! _Ublyudok!_" she shouted, growing louder. "I get _mylytsya_! Put down _dyevochka_!"

Buffy looked at Kirill. Kirill looked at Buffy. Her mouth was kind of hanging.

"OK, really," said Buffy, "you used to do _what_ for a living?"

_"Piz'duk!"_ cried the old woman.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Bourne Supremacy belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and Paul Greengrass/Universal Studios.

Author's Warning: butchery of the Russian language ahead.

When they finally landed in London, Buffy could have cried.

The devil-woman wouldn't leave them alone. She kept spitting and cursing at Kirill and muttering cryptically to Buffy, all of it in Russian. A young man who looked as if he might be her grandson was apparently used to this and slept through everything. Buffy spent the rest of the flight keeping a less lusting, more wary eye on Kirill, whose body language slowly deteriorated from civil patience to the point where she was certain he was going to shoot the hag, just the second Buffy's back was turned.

From then until landing, the flight was…_interminable_. The stewardesses were laughing at her, Buffy was sure, and at some point she just _knew _the pilot had come over the intercom to update them on their progress and make a joke about not letting Americans into restrooms, judging by the way everyone in coach had coughed, sniggered, and glanced, grinning, at her where she sat next to Kirill. He, of course, looked utterly unmoved. Buffy wanted the seat to swallow her whole.

At the airport in London, they disembarked as quickly as Buffy could get Kirill to move, dragging him away from the devil-woman by the arm. She refused to think of it as running away. It was more like she was saving the woman's life from Kirill, who was looking more murderous by the syllable. The harpy actually looked as if she was going to follow them, but that was when her minder, disgustingly well-rested and cheerful, finally stepped in and shooed her away.

Customs and processing took longer, throughout which Buffy could feel Kirill's eyes on her like a physical touch. When he was asked, "Are you here for business or pleasure?" and Kirill answered "Pleasure," his accent seemed to thicken and curl around the word like smoke, and the pen Buffy had in her hand bent like hot plastic. She came up with a lame "It, uh, it must have been…cheap."

It was late. A pouring rain had blown in from the north, and they were wet through just getting into the cab. Kirill held the door for her, as he'd been holding all the doors for her, and the sight of his wet hair and the raindrops slicking his skin left her with her jaw kind of hanging, so much so that the cabdriver had to cough to get her attention.

The drive to the Council building was tense and quiet. Kirill seemed somewhat distracted now, his hand only absentmindedly stroking her knee, which was still enough to leave her a quivering mess next to him.

Buffy herself was feeling more and more anxious, though why she didn't know. Hadn't she done exactly what Giles had asked her to? He wanted an assassin, well, here was an assassin. He owed her a cookie.

Except, somehow, she didn't think Giles had meant for her to be groping that assassin in dark corners and not-so-dark bathrooms.

Buffy suspected she was in for some heavy artillery disapproval when she got back. Neither her Watcher, her sister, nor her friends had made much secret of their wanting her to find a nice, clean-cut (or maybe not so clean-cut, because, well, _Riley_, but cleaner-cut than Spike, which was, come to think of it, almost anybody) guy to not quite settle down with. Two years after Spike's death, they were wholeheartedly hinting that they'd like to see her in something other than a destructive relationship full of self-loathing. For some reason, she didn't think Russian ex-government assassins who probably had ties to the KGB ranked high on their list.

Not that she wanted to settle down or even not quite settle down with Kirill. For pity's sake, she'd only just met the guy. And he probably wasn't even looking for long-term anything anyway, being the playboy he undoubtedly was—

—but what did that mean for _her_? She wasn't looking for a fling, had some serious misgivings as to her ability to even have flings. A house with a white picket fence and a dog and babies were things she wasn't even thinking about, but neither did she want to, how did Faith put it, "get mine and get gone." Or something like that.

If she wanted more and Kirill didn't, where did that leave her?

Tough, callused fingers touched her face. Buffy started, turned to see Kirill looking at her. A fingertip brushed a tendril of hair behind her ear.

"Stop your worry," he told her, and leaned back to resume looking out the window.

Buffy just kind of floated off somewhere and stopped thinking.

The Council building in London was actually a rather large manor house that had once been a fortified keep, complete with stables and grounds, though it wasn't anything on the scale of the castle in Scotland or the property in Cleveland. It held the smallest number of Slayers of any of their Council branches, and served more often as a halfway house where the senior staff could meet and Slayers could find a place to crash, a bite to eat, or turn to for refuge, reinforcements, and supplies.

The taxi went as far as the front gate, at which point Buffy and Kirill had to get out and negotiate the path to the front door themselves. Kirill paid the fare, casually ignoring Buffy's protests, and wouldn't even give her her own bag to carry. Buffy wanted to be annoyed, but the rain was coming down so hard that they were soaked to the skin in seconds, and it was hard to be annoyed with someone who looked like Kirill did just then. Buffy decided to let Kirill do what he wanted and focus instead on worrying about what was going to happen inside.

The key to the front gate still worked, and they hurried up to the manor house looming against the black sky, perhaps half the windows filled with bright, warm light. Kirill seemed impressed by the size and age of the house, and she could see him glancing at everything they passed, picking out the walls, the organization of the grounds, the doors he could see, and probably even good sniper positions. It figured that _he_ wasn't nervous at all and _she_ was ready to collapse.

At the massive, oaken slab that was the entrance, Buffy was fumbling for the key in her bag when the door slammed open on its own.

"You're _late_," said Dawn. "We thought you were going to be home yesterday."

"I called," protested Buffy.

"Yeah, this morning! Giles was freaking out, I think he rubbed away one of the lenses on his glasses. Where's the—"

Dawn's eyes went over Buffy's shoulder and she stopped talking with her mouth still open.

"Dawn," said Buffy resignedly, "this is Kirill. Let us in so I can introduce him to everybody."

Dawn stood aside without further protest, letting both Buffy and Kirill into the hall. He closed the door behind them, and then they stood dripping for a minute in awkward silence.

The expression on Dawn's face was so strange. Buffy had expected some kind of reaction—because, _come on_—but this was…weird. She was looking at Kirill not as if she was staring in a lustful daze, but in a sort of blanched shock, as if she had seen a ghost. Buffy didn't know what to make of it.

_"Zd'ravstvuyte,"_ Dawn said suddenly, and held out her hand. _"Menia zavut _Dawn_."_

Kirill did that thing with his eyebrow that made Buffy dizzy, and took Dawn's hand. _"Zd'ravstvuyte."_

Dawn looked like she either wanted to say something or swoon. She ended up letting go of Kirill's hand (a little slowly, Buffy thought), and told her, "Everyone's in the kitchen. Um, Faith's here."

There was that look again. Buffy frowned. Was there something about Faith she was supposed to worrying about? Besides the whole Kirill eventually leaving her for Faith thing.

Dawn rolled her eyes. "OK, I don't know how you're this clueless." She sighed. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

She stomped off, and Buffy was left to shrug at Kirill.

First, they hung up their coats, which took them from soaked to slightly damp. Kirill rigorously tousled his short hair, sending raindrops flying and making Buffy stare at the coat closet door, calculating the chances of both of them fitting. She left her bag, but Kirill kept his.

The hall was mostly dark, lined with doors leading to other rooms. Behind one she heard the distinct clang of swords, and through another she heard at least three girls laughing hysterically at something on a TV. There were no lights besides the one at the front door and what shone around the edges of the doors of the occupied rooms, and Buffy found herself leading Kirill through the shadows of the corridor, their steps noiseless but for the occasional drip. She could hear him breathing like a storm in her ears, and flushed to think of him standing close behind her in the dark.

The door to the kitchen was at the end of the hall, Dawn standing a square of light. She was biting her lip, a habit she had that appeared when she was worried about something, and her eyes went from Kirill to Buffy to Kirill.

"He is _so_ going to get killed," Buffy heard Dawn mutter, and before she could do more than hear the alarm going off in her head and feel the way Kirill stiffened behind her, Dawn walked into the kitchen.

OK, it was now or…well…she supposed she could always run away. Maybe Kirill would like Tahiti?

_No,_ Buffy heard in her head. This was his second chance, his guarantee of safety; it wasn't too far a stretch to say that his life depended on this working out.

Buffy set her jaw. She had actually managed to forget that there were some seriously dangerous people who wanted Kirill dead. The whole point of Kirill coming to the Watcher's Council in the first place was to gain its protection, which he wouldn't unless he became a full-fledged member—the agreement the Watchers had had with Mother Russia for the last three hundred years very specifically stipulated that fact.

She was not going to let her weakness get Kirill killed.

Trying to smile reassuringly at Kirill, Buffy stepped into the kitchen.

Giles was just getting up from the table. He was wearing some tweed atrocity just short of a war crime, which clearly said that Dawn had been letting him go shopping by himself again. "Buffy! You're late."

Buffy groaned. "I called!"

"Yeah," said Xander around a mouthful of tomato sauce and cheese. "This _morning_."

"We thought you'd been kidnapped by the KGB," explained Andrew. "Dawn was all ready to assault Moscow but we didn't have a submarine."

Xander, Willow, and Andrew were at the table, slices of pizza and opened boxes scattered down the length of it. Faith was at the other end, lounging back with her feet up. Between them were two nervous-looking girls whose faces Buffy didn't recognize, which meant they were new. Everything was a mess, which meant the housekeeper had quit again.

"Did you bring us anything?" asked Andrew, looking hopeful. "I heard Moscow has the—_hello_!"

Every single eye in the kitchen swung from Buffy to the doorway.

She could feel Kirill standing behind her like a line of heat against her body.

"Guys, this is Kirill," said Buffy. "Kirill, this is the Watcher's Council. And Andrew."

She stepped to the side to make room for Kirill. He came in slowly, one, all-encompassing glance taking in everything and anything. Once beside her, he nodded to each person there, his eyes somewhere between bleak and unmoved. Giles was the only one who nodded back.

Something strange was going on. Every single person there except for Dawn was wearing the same look. Buffy wasn't sure what to call it; the closest she could come was _shock_. Willow's mouth was slightly open, as was Andrew's, and Xander's eyes were wide.

Faith was staring at Kirill.

Buffy felt jealousy like a sword-stroke slicing her heart open. It took every muscle in her body to stop herself from looking at Kirill. Instead, she tried a forced, "Do I have something on my face?"

No one answered. Xander's eyes swung from Kirill to Faith and back.

"Kirill," said Giles. His voice was strained, as if he was trying very hard to sound normal. "Ah, well. Would you like, er…some tea? Or perhaps a drink? I don't think I'm wrong when I say we could all use some scotch."

"Except for you," Willow told Dawn hurriedly.

Kirill glanced at Buffy. Out of nowhere, the taste of vodka and his tongue flooded her mouth, the memory of kissing him on the plane.

"Oh, oh my God," said Xander, and Buffy looked back to see that everyone was now staring at _her_, Xander in obvious horror. Her face felt hot; she realized that she was blushing and everyone could see it.

"Oh, my God," said Dawn.

"Oh, my God," said Willow faintly.

"Oh, my bloody God," muttered Giles.

_"Lucky,"_ sighed Andrew and one of the new girls.

"Can I talk to you?" said Xander, already on his feet and hurrying over to her. "For a second?"

"Guys," began Buffy, but then Xander had her arm and was pulling her to the corner next to the window.

_"Assassin,"_ whispered Xander quite loudly. "Assassin!"

Buffy scowled. "So?"

Xander's open mouth worked for a minute before he threw up his wringing hands and gasped, _"Assassin!"_

"Not anymore," said Buffy, but even she could hear how plaintive she sounded.

"Buffy," said Xander, a little more calmly, "I understand how it is. He's tall, dark, mysterious. Dangerous, with an enigmatic past. And he's a good dresser, I can see it, he wears those pants very well. But, Buffy—_assassin_."

"Not anymore," she repeated, and crossed her arms. "There's no reason why we can't—"

"I can give you three," said Xander. "One, he's an assassin, two, he kills people for a living, and three, he's an assa—_what is that_?"

Buffy jumped, turned without thinking. There wasn't anything in the window. When she looked back, Xander was still gaping at her. "What? What?"

"That," stammered Xander, "that—that—that right there!"

He pointed directly into her breasts.

_"Xander,"_ gasped Buffy, and would have pushed him away if something hadn't abruptly occurred to her.

Buffy looked down. There, peeking over the neckline of her lower-cut and still damp blouse, was the curving end of a red bite mark.

She crossed her arms over herself, but it was too late. Dawn's jaw was on the floor. Giles was gulping down a glass of scotch.

"OK," said Willow, still pink. "Um, so, um, who saw this coming miles away besides me?"

_"Willow!"_

"I helped you pack," Dawn was muttering. "Where did you put the condoms?"

Buffy stared around in disbelief, saw Kirill. He was standing, disregarded by everyone but Andrew, back at the door, and he was looking at her. No, wait, he wasn't looking at her. He was looking at Xander.

Behind him, Faith was standing up.

"Buffy," Xander was saying, "I know what this feels like to you right now, OK, I get it. But this guy is not Spike. He is not Angel. Buffy, he's not—I mean, you can't..."

_You can't re-soul him,_ Buffy could hear, though he couldn't say it right then. The thought made her stomach tighten and a lump form in her throat.

"Look," murmured Xander, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Just, just go home for tonight, OK? Just sleep on it. Maybe...maybe you just need some distance—"

There was a thump. Kirill had let his bag fall to the hardwood floor. Walking over to where Buffy and Xander were huddled, his stride as tense and contained as a wolf stalking through the snow, he stopped just beside Buffy, coming into both their personal spaces, Buffy's arm brushing his. Without saying a word, he took Xander's hand, the one on Buffy's shoulder, by the wrist, pulled it off and down, and then released it. Then, he put his hand on Xander's shoulder and firmly, inexorably pushed him back, away from Buffy, until there was at least a foot of space between them.

Kirill's eyes were black in the kitchen lights. He was watching Xander, expressionless, cold, and implacable—he was actually slightly taller than Xander. Buffy was reminded of nothing so much as wolf and a dog locking eyes.

Dawn's mouth was still open. Andrew and the two girls were transfixed. Giles was looking at Kirill like he was seeing something he had never in his life ever seen or heard of before, and Willow's eyes were the widest they could be, showing white all around.

Faith was staring at Buffy.

_"Hameetye,"_ Kirill told Xander. His tone was flat and unforgiving.

Xander looked from Kirill to Buffy to Kirill. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

Faith turned and stalked from the room, slamming the door with an awful crash behind her.

The noise seemed to break the mass paralysis. Andrew hurried to his feet and shooed the two girls from the kitchen, glancing back all the while. Xander gave Buffy one disbelieving look and followed Faith, the tautness of his shoulders betraying his feelings. Willow stood up, looked helplessly between Buffy and Xander, and then left, shooting Buffy an apologetic expression.

Giles finished his nightcap, set it slowly down on the table with an audible clink of glass and wood.

"Perhaps," he said finally, not looking at Buffy, "we could talk in the morning, when everyone isn't so...overstrung."

Buffy couldn't move. She wasn't sure why this was hurting her so much. Wasn't it everything she'd expected, everything she'd known she'd get?

Someone touched her elbow. Buffy almost expected it to be Kirill, but turned her head to see Dawn looking at her.

"Come on," said Dawn. Her tone was indecipherable.

Buffy didn't look at Kirill as they walked by him to the door. Before they could go into the hall, however, Giles coughed, and Buffy and Dawn stopped and looked around.

Kirill was standing right behind them. He'd picked up his bag and was poised as if he was following them out the door. When they looked at him, he raised an eyebrow.

"Um," said Dawn. "You're staying here. We, uh, we made up a room, and..."

Kirill gave Dawn a look that made her teeth click as she closed her mouth. Buffy would have said something if he hadn't immediately given her the same look.

"I come back tomorrow," he said, over his shoulder to Giles. "We talk _dogovor_ then."

"Yes," said Giles faintly. "Quite."

This time it was Kirill who took them out, his hand resting gently against Buffy's back. Dawn followed without a whimper of protest, watching the Russian manhandle her sister without really touching her.

On their way out, they passed the door to one of the front rooms, which had recently been converted for combat practice, a place for any resident Slayers to safely practice, spar, or let off steam. It was slightly ajar, and five girls in various states of undress and exertion huddled around it, peeking in.

As they passed, from inside they heard the distinct noise of something heavy being struck repeatedly with extreme force, and, over it, Faith's voice.

"—ME," she was shouting, voice a storm of fury and despair. "IT'S ME WITH A FUCKING—"

Then something struck the door with a dull thunk ,and three inches of steel punctured through the wood. One of the girls hastily closed the door the rest of the way and then they stared as Buffy, Dawn, and Kirill went by, politely waiting until they were at least at the front door and retrieving their coats and Buffy's bag from the coat closet to start whispering.

The rain was letting up, though not by much, and Buffy sucked in a lungful of cool, wet air. She closed her eyes, putting a hand over her eyes.

"I'll get the car," Dawn said in a small voice, and left, her footsteps splashing as she left the front entranceway.

Buffy winced. She looked at Kirill, who was looking at her.

"I'm sorry," she said in a small voice. "This must look so professional to you."

Oh, God. What must he think of them?

He touched her chin. He traced his fingers down her cheek, the arch of her neck, and she focused on the way the muscles of his neck flexed from the angle of his arm, holding their bags.

Kirill leaned down, down, and pushed her head back with his, his lips on her skin.

"We are in London, _da_?" he said quietly.

Their mouths came together. Buffy slid her arms over his neck, his free one circling her waist, and a sweet forgetfulness stole over everything.

"Oh, _come on_," said Dawn's disgusted voice, and Buffy broke the kiss to look, Kirill's breath in her ear.

Dawn stood on the top step, arms folded. She was rolling her eyes so hard her eyeballs had to be hurting.

"I have class tomorrow," said Dawn snottily, "so I have to get up early. Try not to make too much noise tonight, even if he does bite as hard as that, you skank."

Buffy blushed.

"You're doing your own laundry from now on," finished Dawn, and eyed Kirill. "I guess we're roommates now. _Zdrastvui zhopa, novy gode!_"

Kirill's mouth opened, his eyes widened slightly, and then he laughed, a sudden, quietly explosive laugh, low and dark.

Buffy's heart leaped into her throat. Dawn's expression was priceless.

"OK," said Dawn shakily. "I totally get it."

Glossary of Russian Terms (I Think)

_hameetye _ you're being rude

_dogovor _ contract

_zdrastvui zhopa, novy gode _ Hello, ass, Happy New Year! (a joking greeting, expressing astonishment or disbelief: I'll be goddamned!)


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Bourne Supremacy belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and Paul Greengrass/Universal Studios.

Author's Warning: butchery of the Russian language ahead.

Dear Not-a-Diary,

OK, so the coolest thing that has ever, ever happened to me my whole life happened to me today, and it's all because my sister has no taste in men.

So, we get home last night, see, and Buffy is practically molesting him with her eyes and Kirill is a stray hand away from throwing her down and making babies right there on the stoop. I think I gagged a couple of times.

They were really quiet the whole drive over. I couldn't decide if Buffy was quiet because of what happened back at the house or if she was just too busy staring into Kirill's eyes to talk. Kirill, of course, is the naturally quiet type of guy (I think assassins have to be, you know, I'm having trouble picturing a chatty assassin being good at his job), and from what I could see in the rear view mirror, he was too busy memorizing the way from the Council building to our flat anyway. Or sleeping. I had trouble telling.

In any case, we got home, I somehow found a parking spot (I swear I'm going to start paying hobos to sit in parking spots for me), we went up the stairs, and I let us all into the flat with my key because of course Buffy lost hers. (Great. Some Russian has the key to my flat.) It was kind of messy and smelled like mildew, and I probably would have been embarrassed if Kirill was from anywhere but Russia. Buffy was definitely embarrassed, but he wasn't fazed at all, just kind of dropped his bag, hung up his coat, and gave me this look like I was supposed to disappear so he could assault my sister in private.

I guess I didn't move fast enough, though, because then he told me straight out, "Now go to bed, _lapushka_," sexy Russian accent and all.

I'm not ashamed to say that I sort of muttered "Don't shake the walls" and went into my room.

I swear I tried to go to sleep. I really did have class in the morning, Professor Hobbs is _not kidding_ about that final, but you show me the girl who can sleep while on the other side of the wall some ex-Russian secret service guy is doing unmentionable things to her sister and _isn't_ a sociopath!

Or, at least, I think he was doing unmentionable things. I didn't hear a _thing_. And these walls are, like, paper! There wasn't a noise, a scream, a _whisper_, all night long. I don't think I have to tell you I was flabbergasted.

Not that I was thinking about that, or anything. About what he was doing to her, I mean. It's just that how could I _not_ worry, since Buffy's a walking catastrophe looking for someone to happen to _anyway_, even when she's not dating someone who, um...kills people, or, uh, works for the government...hmmm.

I really don't know how she's so oblivious. Even Andrew saw how Faith was going to react in, like, seconds. And I really can't blame her. How long did everyone give her crap about all that stuff that happened nearly ten years ago? How long did it take for us to get over it and let her actually be one of the gang? And then Buffy comes home with an assassin she is _clearly_ sleeping with like ten seconds after she met him?

Buffy was always careless where Faith was concerned.

I don't know how she's justifying this to herself. I don't want to think about it either. Of anyone here, anyone still with us, I should know most of all how she lets things slide for guys she happens to be shtupping that she wouldn't for anyone else.

I guess it helps that Kirill is the hottest thing to come out of Russia since Dostoevsky. (...maybe that's just me.) Spike and Angel were hot, too, and Riley was good-looking, but Kirill? I don't know. He's got this, this intensity, this focus, that I've never seen in anyone else except Buffy. And even with Buffy, I've only seen it a few times. I saw it when she made up her mind to kill Angelus. I saw it when she understood, finally, after everything, that she would have to really go after Faith.

I saw it that night, when she jumped instead of me.

That focus is what I see in Kirill, except with him it's there all the time. I've known him all of twenty-four hours and I can already tell—how he's never relaxed, never lets go. I don't know if it's because of his training or his life or if it's just the way he's had to be to survive being him, but he's got this tension, this high-strung awareness that you can see especially when you catch him at the odd moment when he looks directly at Buffy, like he's drowning and she's the air. Like he's looking at something he's desperate to keep and he would do anything to make that happen. Like his whole existence, his whole life and being, is a scope aimed at his possession of, his proximity to.

The same way Spike used to look at her.

And the thing is, you can't see any of this in their faces. You have to have been there, you have to know them, you have to stand next to them and feel the weight of their conviction, to understand how far they would go and how hard they would fight to get whatever it is they need or want. Maybe that's why Xander can't see in Kirill's face how important this is to him, how he's not going to let anything or anyone stand in his way.

Xander called this morning, on my cell. He didn't want to talk to Buffy, he wanted to talk to _me_—mostly about Kirill, and was I OK, how did I feel about it, blah-blah-blah. I could almost hear him wanting me to spill the dirt, some sob story about how that big mean assassin yelled at me and how Buffy came downstairs with a bruise and told me she'd walked into a door, or maybe how Kirill can't sleep at night until he's kicked a puppy.

I told him Kirill got up at five to get fresh bagels and croissants from the bakery for breakfast, let me have the gossip pages of his Russian newspaper, and made sure I ate something before I left for class. (All of which is true! Except maybe that last part, that was more like him telling me "Eat this bagel." and me going "OK!" because I was too scared to say no.)

It's not like I don't get where Xander is coming from, because I do. It's really hard to watch someone we love make stupid decisions (oh, God, I am _not_ going there), but, you know, I can't help but think shouldn't we _all_ have learned something from the last time?

Buffy never talks about it. It's still there, hanging between us like a dead weight, the corpse in the living room, and I know the only reason she doesn't get her own place is because she doesn't want to hurt my feelings and she's hardly ever in residence anyway. And I know that this distance between us isn't entirely her fault, just like it's not entirely mine, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still hard to talk to her. Giles has tried to speak to her about it, and Willow and Xander, but it doesn't help because I don't think they have any easier of a time talking to her than I do. Nowadays, if it's not about directly Slayer- or Council-related business, Buffy doesn't want to hear it.

I don't know how to fix it.

Faith didn't call. Then again, Faith never calls. I know I should say something to Buffy about it, but Faith is another one of those touchy subjects where I never know which direction a conversation is going to go. I think maybe I should leave this one alone, let Buffy and Faith get through it. Besides, I'm having enough trouble trying to handle Xander.

He was waiting when I got home from the university. He had this really determined look on his face, and when we got upstairs and I let him in, the first thing he did was tell Buffy that he wanted to talk. Buffy and Kirill were sitting on the couch, either watching TV or talking (but most likely just making out), and Buffy stood up and went into her room with Xander. They closed the door.

I looked at Kirill. Kirill looked at me.

In Russian, he asked me, "He's her ex-husband?"

"Uh," I said, "no."

He had this look on his face. Kirill likes to pretend he's completely unfathomable, but there are times, like that one, when I can so tell that he's really pissed off. "Ex-boyfriend?"

"No," I said. "More like a big brother, you know? They're friends. She's like his sister."

"Ah," said Kirill, and that expression kind of faded into his usual wall-like blankness, like he wasn't just totally planning to assassinate Xander.

I went to my room and tried not to worry. But it was hard. Buffy's been drifting away from us for years, ever since those last three in Sunnydale when everything went straight down the crapper. And now, with Kirill, what if she decides to move out? What if she decides to leave altogether? She wouldn't go far, not from the Council and what we're doing for the Slayers, but...

I don't want her to go.

I was sitting at my desk, staring at the screen of my laptop, when Kirill came in. I could have sworn that door was locked.

He's so quiet. I think he might be even quieter than Buffy, who walks like a cat.

He sat on the edge of my bed.

"Let's talk, _babyonka_," he said in Russian.

I have to admit that for a second I was so scared I thought I'd pee myself. If he shot me with a silencer at that close a range, would Buffy hear?

"So talk," I replied bravely, and, thank God, he kind of smiled.

"I'm going to marry your sister," he said. "Are you going to get in my way?"

I've never heard two sentences more terrifying. I think I sat there gaping at him for nearly a minute before he made an impatient movement with his eyebrow.

"Uh," I said intelligently. "Well, um..."

He just sat and waited, like a rock, a hot, Russian rock, watching me try to think of an answer that didn't seem too cowardly but also didn't get me killed.

"What if she doesn't want to marry you?" I managed to say in a small voice.

He actually smiled, the bastard. "She does," he said. "Don't worry about that. Now tell me. Are you going to get in my way?"

Oh, God. This was so much worse than even Xander suspected.

I lifted my chin. "Only if you're not good for her," I told the assassin sitting on my bed not three feet from me. "Then yeah, I am totally going to get in your way."

He just looked at me, and I think my life may have started flashing before my eyes, which made me realize that I rather regretted a lot of the wardrobe choices I made in life and Buffy's hair really wasn't _that_ bad _that_ often.

But then Kirill kind of smiled again, and, for the first time that I've seen, for two seconds, almost looked like a normal human being with feelings.

"Good girl," he told me. "We will be brother and sister, yes? I will take care of you, too."

It was at that point that I began to think that this guy had some serious control issues. Before I could say anything stupid, though, he stood up. There was something about his face, then, his eyes, how black they were in the light, that made me stay very still and very quiet.

"I am going to take care of her, Dawn," he said quietly, still in Russian, "because I take care of what's mine. Don't think otherwise. It's simply the way things are now. I wanted you to understand that."

And the thing is, I totally believed him. Every word.

I recognized the same look in his eyes that I saw in Buffy's. That look, that hopeless, unyielding look, just before she turned around and died for me.

Kirill used to take money to kill people. From what I saw in his files, what it said about his lifestyle and the jobs he took, he really didn't care about anything else, not then. Nothing was important to him but the job. It wasn't even really the kill; it was the money, the comforts, the luxuries, what he got _for_ killing. Any psychologist worth her degree could have told you what Giles and I knew from the first paragraph of his dossier: Kirill was a sociopath, a killer, considerate of nothing except his own wants and needs.

Except now he's got Buffy. He's got my sister. Buffy, my oblivious, distant, spoiled, overbearing, stuck-up, holier-than-thou, absolutely amazing and beautiful sister.

She's everything he is, and more. Buffy is a killer, too, but she has compassion, she knows and understands the line that he hasn't been able to see for nearly all of his adult life. She's a manifestation of everything he isn't and probably has never had the opportunity to see up close. She is a dazzling light to his dark-dimmed eyes.

Kirill is completely filled up by her.

He's taking her away from me. I feel it in my heart, how it's going to happen, how it's all beginning now, even as I write this, in all the little ways she looks at him.

To be honest, Buffy left a long time ago. But she was always still within reach, still in a place where we could have taken her hands and pulled her back. Where I could have gone to get her, or that she could have eventually just come back from, when she was ready. It just took time, took healing. We weren't finished, we were just waiting, waiting for someone, anyone, to make the first move.

Not now. Not anymore.

Because here's Kirill, Kirill's hands, his mouth, his eyes, and he's pulling at her from a direction I can't follow or even see.

Buffy waited too long—_I_ waited too long—and now he's taking her away.

My eyes filled with tears. Kirill saw that, and, would you believe it, it made him uncomfortable.

"Don't cry, _boi-baba_," he said gruffly. "You will still see her. She is your sister. And I, I am your brother. We will take care of you."

He held my shoulder, probably his version of a comforting hug. It was very awkward.

"Be good to her," I told him, voice not shaking at all, "or I'll beat you to death with a shovel."

"Shovels take a long time," he replied, very seriously. "It would be better to just try to shoot me."

I don't want to think about how he knows that shovels take a long time. I didn't then, either, so I just shut up and cleared my throat, trying to let him know he should leave so I could cry by myself.

"I thought you would be upset," said Kirill, "so I brought something to cheer you up. It is in your desk drawer."

He went to the door. I could hear the front door slamming: Xander making his exit.

At the noise, Kirill paused. I think a vein throbbed in his forehead. "Would your sister despise me if I got rid of the boy?"

"With the fiery intensity of a thousand hot suns," I answered. "Plus, she'd probably kill you."

Kirill didn't sigh or roll his eyes or anything, but his jaw stiffened a little, like he was accepting something he didn't want to accept and not liking the taste of it. Then he opened the door and left, closing it behind him.

I turned back to the desk. I felt kind of numb. Then, out of a dull need for distraction more than anything else, I opened my desk drawer.

There was a folded piece of paper with something in it. Figuring it probably wasn't a bomb, especially after the talk we just had, I opened it.

The paper was a picture that I only then noticed was missing from the wall, where I usually had it taped. The heavier thing I'd noticed inside was a set of car keys, remote attached. On the paper was printed, in neat, OC Russian, _Snaruzhi._

I think I broke the sound barrier getting to the window.

A PORSCHE!

THAT SNEAKY _GAD_ GOT ME A PORSCHE!

You don't understand! That picture? That picture was of my dream car. My baby. My one hope in life. And now she's MINE! MY PORSCHE! HE GOT ME MY PORSCHE!

OK, so I'm not _entirely_ comfortable with accepting it. It feels a lot like a bribe. Except how do you bribe someone for something you already have? Also, PORSCHE.

This doesn't mean I like him. It doesn't mean I'm going to take his side over anyone else's. And it definitely doesn't mean that I'm just going to let Buffy go without a fight. (Though it probably _does_ mean that I'm not going to say anything about him coming into my room without permission, even if I could swear I remembered to lock the door.)

But I so can't wait to tell Buffy that I traded her bony ass in for a Porsche.

Xander is going to go ape.

PORSCHE!

Dawn

Glossary of Russian Terms (I Think)

_lapushka _ sweetie, literally "little paw"

_babyonka_ a spunky girl

_boi-baba_ a feisty, shrewd woman; literally "fighting woman"

_snaruzhi_ outside

_gad_ skunk


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Bourne Supremacy belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and Paul Greengrass/Universal Studios.

Author's Warning: butchery of the Russian language ahead. Special thanks to Pax and Satine Nuit for their Russian language commentary.

Placing a hand flat on the white, varnished surface, Buffy pushed shut the door of her bedroom.

She closed her eyes, inhaled, and leaned her head against the wood. The drive home had been _so_ uncomfortable. She couldn't decide if she had really wanted to talk to Dawn about everything that had happened or if she was grateful beyond imagining that Kirill was there to keep her sister, eyes wide with questions, quiet. Was it just her, or was Dawn _intimidated _by Kirill? Buffy had never known her sister to put up with being told to go to bed so well by anyone, much less one of Buffy's...whatever Kirill was.

The look on Dawn's face had been priceless.

When Buffy turned back, Kirill was standing by the bed. He had lowered his duffel to the floor against the wall, and stood looking at things in the room. The lamp on the table was vintage, with a fabric shade that cast a low, sulky light. Against the wall of Buffy's bedroom, Kirill's eyes and hair were darker than the blackest black Buffy had ever seen, and when he turned his head to glance at her, she had to swallow her heart back into her chest.

"It's kind of cramped," she said in a small voice, "and it gets really cold at night because the heat is always breaking, and there isn't going to be any hot water if you let Dawn get into the shower first—"

Kirill picked up the small, pink stuffed pig sitting between two pillows.

Buffy cringed. Why did they always go for the pig? "That's, um, Dawn gave that to me, because I, uh, lost my old one. Not that I collect dolls, or anything, because I, too, am a grown-up—"

He was turning the pig over and over in his hands, giving it the kind of attention bomb squads gave ticking briefcases. When he looked at her again, she was blushing for no reason she could see.

Kirill put the pig back between the two pillows. His eyes went to the bed itself, a queen with plain white sheets and a thick, poofy comforter, a gray cashmere throw tossed into the middle.

From there, he walked slowly, casually over to the table, picking up a book here, a bottle of lotion there. The closet, a walk-in barely worthy of the title, was half-open, still messy from when she had done her last-minute packing for Moscow, and he peered into it, reaching out to trace one, dangling leather sleeve.

Buffy watched him, feeling strangely breathless. He looked so...out of place. Uncanny. As if he didn't belong in bedrooms with things like pink, stuffed pigs and fuzzy throws. She vaguely wondered what kind of bedroom he was used to being in, and then scolded herself for thinking like that. A girl should at least wait until there _was_ a relationship before sabotaging it.

The bedroom was so...bare. Buffy didn't remember it seeming like that at all when she'd left. There was nothing on the walls, the table was covered in bills and some Council-related paperwork, there was dust on the wood floor. The lamp and the pig were the only personal touches to a room she'd been living in for nearly two years. It could as well have been a hotel room.

Was that what Kirill was seeing?

He was at the window. He looked out of it, frowning at the fire escape that climbed the building just outside. Without speaking, he touched the latches on the window, pushing on them to make sure they were locked, shut the blinds with a turn of the handle, and closed the curtains.

It was abruptly that much darker. Buffy tried not to hiccup from nervousness.

"Do you—" Her hands clenched and unclenched with the urge to tear his shirt off. "Are you, are you hungry?"

He turned. He was looking at her, a peculiar expression on his face, one she hadn't seen before. He looked as if he was trying recognize someone he wasn't sure he knew.

"We could have Chinese," Buffy went on, "or if you're not tired, there are a few pubs around here serving late—"

"Come here," he said quietly.

Buffy closed her mouth. She stood still, trying to understand what this sudden, paralyzing feeling was.

"We could make something," she said, in nearly a whisper. "There's probably nothing in the refrigerator, but we—"

"Come here," he said again, and now there was a creeping edge to his voice.

Her legs trembled. She tried to move and managed a tentative step forward.

Kirill left the window. He moved slowly as he crossed the room, coming to within three feet of her. She could feel the heat of his skin as if she were touching him, and the smell of vodka and his sweat, the soap he had last used, back in Moscow.

Buffy toed off her boots and stepped barefoot onto the floor.

Kirill...stared. He tilted his head farther, now looking down at her from a height difference of nearly a foot.

"It's the shoes," she explained reluctantly. "They make me look taller, but...what? Are you—are you _grinning_ at me? Stop grinning! I'm—I am not that short!"

Which was actually not so true, because her nose was practically at his sternum. Had he always been this tall? Look at that stomach! Experienced mountaineers would need a harness and a Sherpa to scale those—

His hands touched her face.

Buffy inhaled, eyes half-closing. He was cupping her face, the roughened skin of his palms and fingers hot against her skin. Her hands came up and rested against his arms, her whole body sort of rocking toward him as if pulled, her knee brushing his.

He was almost towering over her, his hands urging her head back, her mouth up. She looked at him, at his eyes, his mouth, and he leaned down to brush his lips against hers, making her groan and open her mouth in anticipation of—

—him stepping away, taking his hands with him.

"Use _vannayah_ first," he told her as he moved away, back to where he'd dropped his bag. "Then go to bed."

Buffy stood still for a few more seconds, wondering if she'd finally flipped her lid. When all Kirill did was sit on the edge of the bed, pulling the duffel over with a foot to unzip and rummage through it, Buffy finally dropped her hands, turned dazedly around, and staggered to the door, through it, and to the bathroom down the hall.

Inside, the white light glaring in her face, Buffy stared at herself in the mirror.

Out loud, she asked her reflection, "What was that?"

What _was_ that? He'd been—well, she was so sure he'd been about to, um—to do _something_? To do what she was nearly ninety-nine percent certain the last twelve hours had been leading up to. Hadn't they?

Then, a horrifying thought: was it her? Was he trying to tell her to clean up before he would continue?

Buffy examined her face and teeth, found nothing offensive. Her breath was also not bad, in fact was still fresh and minty. There was nothing she could find that could have put him off that badly. The man was _Russian_!

She braced her hands against the sink counter and closed her eyes.

This was _such_ a bad idea.

Somehow, she had managed to spoil everything—again. Going to Moscow had been strictly about offering this man, this assassin living on borrowed time, a chance to do something worthwhile and make up for his life. To not only serve the greater good but also make for himself a new world in which he didn't have to kill people. It had been about finally putting into motion Giles's plan to staff the Watcher's Council with the list of personnel they had carefully put together to teach their Slayers the skills they would need to maximize their chances of survival in the modern world.

And somehow, Buffy had once again managed to turn the whole thing into yet more of the smoldering, burning wreckage that was her love life.

What had she been thinking? Why had she done this? Didn't she used to have more restraint than this?

_I don't even know anything about him,_ she thought. _He doesn't know anything about _me

She had to finish this. She had to. She had to get him out of her room, out of the flat, into a hotel somewhere. She had to call Giles and tell him what a horrible mistake she'd made, that she'd gone temporarily insane with loneliness. She had to—

Behind her, the bathroom door clicked and opened. Buffy turned.

Kirill leaned against the door frame, wearing a sleeveless gray T-shirt and loose black pants. His feet were bare. On his flesh, she read the faint, paler lines of scars.

"I hear you thinking," he told her. He sounded ever so slightly accusing. "I hear through wall."

"Uh," said Buffy, and mentally wailed. How useless was she going to be if she couldn't even look at him without being rendered incapable of more than monosyllables?

"You brush teeth?" he asked. Buffy mutely shook her head. "Then brush teeth."

Buffy—hesitated. She looked at the mug sitting on the counter, holding her nondescript pink toothbrush and Dawn's yellow Winnie the Pooh toothbrush.

Kirill stood looking at her, waiting.

"I," began Buffy, and found that she was feeling vaguely self-conscious, as if he'd told her to strip.

Kirill made a noise that could have been a sigh, could have been frustration. Stepping into the bathroom, he closed the door behind him, and dropped something onto the counter. It was a tube of toothpaste, printed on in Russian, and still in his hand was a black toothbrush.

Buffy watched as Kirill turned on the cold water, wet the bristles, turned the water off, applied toothpaste, and began brushing his teeth.

After a second, she took up her own toothbrush and the half-used tube of Colgate and began brushing as well.

It was possibly the most surreal moment of her life.

Kirill himself didn't seem to be at all uncomfortable. He stared straight ahead, brushing his teeth efficiently and neatly, with almost military precision, mouth mostly closed. He was done almost as soon as he'd started, without—as far as Buffy could see—having missed a single tooth, and turned the water back on just long enough to spit, rinse his mouth, and rinse his toothbrush, then turned the water back off and stuck his toothbrush into the mug alongside Dawn's.

He turned and looked at her.

Buffy, maybe half-done, continued to brush, and felt that nothing previous in her life could conceivably have been as weird as standing there, awkwardly brushing her teeth, while Kirill watched. Finally, when she'd hurriedly wrapped up her normally leisurely brushing job, she turned the water back on and took her time finishing, conscious of his eyes on her.

She washed her face, too, as long as she was there, and came back up groping for the towel behind her. She felt Kirill move, at that, and then the towel was suddenly within reach.

Drying off, Buffy glanced at Kirill.

"Now go to bed," he said, and practically pushed her out of the bathroom ahead of him. The last thing she saw of the bathroom was the mug sitting on the counter, holding three toothbrushes, yellow, pink, and black.

Beginning to feel a little (OK, a lot) pushed around, Buffy would have said something except that, when they got back in her bedroom, she found a shirt lying on the bed. While Kirill closed the door and locked it, she went to the shirt, picked it up.

It was black, with some Russian on the front. It was clean but old, worn around the edges.

On it, she picked up the faint smell of soap and Kirill's skin.

She raised her head. Kirill stood at the door, watching.

"Turn around," she said, and scowled to see the way the corner of his lip turned up as he did.

With his back turned, she changed, tossing her skirt, shirt, and bra into the hamper, putting her boots back into the closet. She found a pair of loose cotton pants to wear under the shirt he'd given her, and shook her hair out through her fingers.

When she turned back, Kirill was looking at her.

A blush immediately rose in her face. How long had he been _not_ turning his back?

"If—" Her face grew hot. "If you need an alarm clock, there's one on the nightstand. I...I was just going to sleep in."

She closed her eyes. Could that have been any more obvious?

Without warning, the faint light of the lamp was extinguished, and her eyelids went black. She heard a noise, heard him moving, and then a hand pressed to the small of her back.

She moved forward, propelled, and walked into him. Her cheek brushed his chest, her legs his legs, her chest and stomach against his stomach. Another hand came to her arm, slid down over her elbow to her wrist. He inhaled, a long, slow breath, and she felt it with her entire body.

He was so warm. His skin felt almost hot against hers, and through her clothes, through her own skin, she felt the lines of muscle, bone, and scar tissue. She felt the expanse, the length of his body, felt the corded strength that he held tightly under control as he lowered his mouth into her hair.

"Kirill," she whispered into his chest, and she felt how he tensed, how his flesh hardened against her.

Abruptly he bent, grasping her leg, putting an arm around her waist, and lifted her up. She threw her arms around his neck, kissed his face, his neck, her knees holding his hips. She felt him moving forward, heard the rustle of the comforter and the mattress as he put his knee in it, and then she was falling back onto the bed, his body against hers, his mouth finding her mouth, and she grabbed at his shirt to tear it off—

Kirill rolled away.

Buffy was left lying on her back, a hand groping the air where he should have been. She stared up at the ceiling for nearly fifteen seconds before pushing herself up onto an elbow, looking at Kirill.

He sat on the edge, hands on his knees, facing the opposite end of the room. As Buffy watched, gaping, he breathed in, slowly and carefully, and then out again.

"Kirill?" she said tentatively, and felt something quiver in her stomach to see the way the line of his back seemed to shiver at her voice.

She reached for him, and he stood up.

"Go to sleep," he said.

He took one of the pillows she was lying against, and the gray throw. Tossing these on the floor, he stretched out on top of them, apparently not at all bothered by the chill that was beginning to seep into the wood, and lay there, his head turned away.

Buffy was paralyzed.

She sat in the dark with her mouth open, trying to figure out if this was really happening. Confusion overwhelmed her, tinged with outrage. She'd _felt_ his hard-on, dammit! What was going on? Why was he doing this?

"Kirill," she said again, only this time her voice was firm with the beginnings of anger. "Kirill—"

She heard him sit up, move up beside the bed on his knees. His elbows sank into the mattress, his chin on his folded hands. He poised there, shoulders stiff, as if he was praying, his eyes on her, and he wore the strangest expression she'd ever seen.

"I think," he said quietly, so quietly that she had to strain to hear, "I think, maybe, if I leave you alone, even to go to _vannayah_, you will change mind. _Vy menya panimayete?_ I think...I think you will tell me to go away."

What? Buffy struggled to hold on to her anger in her growing discombobulation. What was he saying?

"There are girls," he continued, and this was in a normal, conversational tone, "who are for playing with. _Dryan'._ And then there are girls a man would like to keep." She felt him pause, felt his eyes on her like a pressure in her heart. "I do not want to play with you, Buffy."

He reached up, pulled her down with his hands on her shoulders, and pressed his mouth to her hair, kissed her hair. She heard him inhale, heard him breathe her in.

Kirill pushed gently on her shoulders, and she let him lay her down, let him pull the comforter around her. He kissed her exposed shoulder. She watched his face.

When he turned away, when he got back down onto the floor, she heard his low, even, absolutely _peaceful_ breathing and couldn't bear to say anything. Instead, she lay still, wondering why tears pricked at her eyelids, why his expression, that of a man looking at something he had thought he could never have and saw now within reach, wouldn't leave her mind.

"Go to sleep, _milakha_," she heard him say, his voice almost ghostly in the dark. "I am here."

She closed her eyes.

Glossary of Russian Terms (I Think)

_vannayah _ bathroom

_Vy menya panimayete? _ Do you understand?

_milakha _ sweet, darling girl


End file.
